Prayer, in the words of hymn-writer Charles Wesley: Finish then Thy new creation, Pure and spotless let us be; Let us see Thy great salvation Perfectly restored in Thee! Changed from glory into glory, Till in heaven we take our place, Till we cast our crowns before Thee, Lost in wonder, love, and praise.
What a clattering cacophony, that day in Jerusalem! What an assault on the ears! You could hardly hear yourself think. I don’t suppose they had rock concerts three thousand years ago, but it must have been a little like one. Loud and boisterous and uncontrollable!
The clank of cartwheels as a team of oxen made its way up the stony streets. The lowing of oxen and the bleating of hundreds of sheep, all of them jammed into a makeshift corral; and, every few minutes, pitiful moaning from the animals destined for the altar of sacrifice. Too much!
The people themselves – the whole nation had gathered in the city, and the sounds of street vendors mingled with laughter and the impromptu games of the children. Everywhere there was noise.
And then there were the musicians. Look at all the equipment these people had at their disposal! Trumpets, cymbals, harps, and lyres. I’m looking at the text to see if they had a four-manual organ too! What an exuberant sound there must have been, that day in Jerusalem!
Now right in the middle of it all, a worship service began. A procession carried the ancient ark of the covenant up into the newly built Temple, and the singers and trumpeters burst forth with music, the king prayed vigorously, and the people shouted hallelujahs ... and suddenly, there was a presence. A cloud. A brooding light. Something came over the people. They fell silent. The notes of the trumpets died away in the twilight. The singers closed their lips. The priests, appointed to stand at God’s altar, sank to their knees, overawed with the majesty of the moment. Everyone, that day in Jerusalem, was lost in wonder, love, and praise. Can you hear it? “Holy, holy, holy. Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. This house is full of Thy glory.”
How does God’s house gain glory? What brings God Himself into our midst? Is it all about shouting and singing? Does the cloud of God’s glory enter the Temple because the preachers are eloquent and their sermons full of snappy stories for sedentary saints? Does God come into this house because you and I orchestrate it, pumping up feelings and manufacturing emotions?
No, the glory of God is felt in His house not because any of us make it happen with musical prowess or oratorical fireworks. The glory of God comes to His house through two things. There are two conditions to be fulfilled if we are to feel God’s presence. One is about history and the other is about holiness. If we will complete our history and if we will cultivate holiness, then the glory of God will come into this house. If we want to experience the power of the Presence in this place, we must complete our history and cultivate holiness.
I
First, notice that when God’s people understand their time in history, and complete the work God has given them to do, then the glory of God comes. When we discern where we are in God’s redemptive plan, and seize that moment to accomplish all that God has given us to do, then we will know His presence. Then we will be lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Think of the history that led up to the moment when the new Temple was dedicated in Jerusalem. They brought in the ark of the covenant. This old box was a reminder that fundamentally they had been a nation of slaves, but God had brought them up out of Egypt, and God had established them in the land of promise. The ark of the covenant was there to remind them of their history and that they had come a long, long way under the mighty hand of God.
And then there was the tabernacle. The tent of meeting, they called it. For over two hundred years the central place of worship for Israel had been a tent, a temporary place. The tabernacle had been made by Moses out in the desert; it had moved with the people as they made their way up the Jordan River valley. It had crossed over into campground with Joshua. It had followed the judges under whom they had taken the land of Canaan. And it had served under their first kings, Saul and David. But it was just a tent. It was temporary.
But now, a new day, a new threshhold in their history. God had taken Israel from a wandering tribe of nobodies and had given them a beautiful land and a great capital city. God had brought them to a climax in their history, and had told them that in this new moment there was a new task: to build a Temple. This Temple would fulfill the history that had begun long ago with an ark and a tabernacle. They were called to complete this work. And this now they had done.
“Thus all the work that Solomon did for the house of the Lord was finished.” Finished. They finished what they had set out to do. They took no short cuts, they fell back on no half-way measures. They finished the work of Temple-building. And then the glory of the Lord came.
Your history as the First Baptist Church of Gaithersburg began some fifty-three years ago in a conversation about an onion! It’s a great story you tell, about two ladies talking recipes. As you peel back the layers of that story, these women found that both were Baptists and both knew that a Baptist church was needed in Gaithersburg. From that seemingly chance encounter in early April 1955, plans were laid, prayers were offered, and only a month later, thirty people gathered to worship. They began a history.
A scant five months later, in faith, these few people bought this expansive property, with a vision for the future. They – and some of you – worshipped in a large white farmhouse, a tabernacle, if you will, temporary, like the one ancient Israel used. Then you grew and you built, you built some more and you grew some more, you grew yet more and you built yet more – this wonderful room in which we gather now. Everyone who sees it is awed by it and feels it is worthy as a place for God’s Presence. You kept on with the task God had called you to do.
But something happened about eight or so years ago. Growth stopped. Attendance began to slack off. New members did not come so easily. Funds to operate the church and pay the debt got to the critical stage. What happened?
We have a habit, you see, of doing things halfway. We have a habit of listening to God and then second-guessing Him. We start things and then do not finish them. I believe with all my heart that God has called this church to excellence. Not just to be a pretty good church, but to be an excellent church. Not just to do okay, but to accomplish great things. God calls us to know our history and then to finish it out.
We need a new plan for outreach. Jesus said, “Go out into the highways and the hedges and compel them to come in.” The highway today might be an apartment complex that looks huge and challenging. The hedge today might be the corner coffeeshop or the pub where young adults hang out. Compelling them to come in might be more listening to them than pushing propositions at them. We need a new outreach plan. We need to live out our history and complete our destiny, and the glory of God will come.
We need to see what God is already doing financially. When I first came here in October and read your balance sheets, I thought you were going to have to drop some staff members and maybe sell some property. But what has happened? You made a commitment to trust God. You commited to put missions work first in your church budget. And things are happening! The loan was reworked to save you well over six thousand dollars a month. A school that will pay us to rent our facilities fell out of the sky, due to the alertness of one of our members and the goodness of God. Financial solvency is in sight, brothers and sisters, it is in sight! And there is more to come. But you and I must now step up and finish the work. If we will give our tithes faithfully, I have no doubt that the Spirit of God will bring us through. God always completes what He has begun; we must do the same.
Our history is clear. Our motives are sound. We want to feel God’s presence. I tell you, when finish what we have begun, the power and the presence of God will be felt. When we get past half-hearted and partial commitment and finish our task, we will see the glory of God.
II
But there’s something else in this text that tells me how we can gain the glory of God in this house. There is another condition that we have to meet if we truly expect to worship. Not only must we, like the people of Israel, fulfill our history and finish the work to which God has called us; but also we must cultivate holiness. We must grow the gifts of all the people. We must develop the resources each one of you has to bring. If we expect to see the glory of God in this church, then every one of us will need to uncover our passions and share our gifts. No second-rate members, no bench-warmers. Every child, every youth, every adult must discern what God has given and use it for the Kingdom.
Look at who got involved in the building of the Temple there in Jerusalem. It’s quite an impressive list. Naturally there were the upscale folks: the elders, the heads of the tribes, the king himself. All the people whose names you would find in the society pages. And that’s good. This church too has some folks like that. But then there were the working stiffs as well, because it says that all the people of Israel assembled, all the congregation gathered before King Solomon. Everyone participated in this great work. It engaged the gifts of all the people.
And do you know what the most impressive part is? The most impressive part is that even the people with fancy credentials set aside their titles and their privileges and got busy on the Lord’s work. Look at this sentence: “... all the priests had sanctified themselves without regard to their divisions ...”. What does that mean? “[They had] sanctified themselves without regard to their divisions.” That means that they got busy on real stuff rather than on looking for applause. That means that leaders got more interested in being Kingdom workers than in using power. That means that if we want to see God’s glory in this place, we will no longer think about divisions and status. We will no longer worry about who’s white and who’s black, who’s American and who’s international, who’s conservative and who’s liberal, who’s been here for twenty years and who’s new, who’s young or who’s seasoned, who’s this or who’s that. None of that will matter. If we want to see the Presence, we will focus on building all God’s people up in holiness. We will be concerned only about whether we are moving men and women out of status-seeking and into spirit-seeking. “Sanctified without regard to ... divisions.”
Your church is accomplishing some things. What a joy it has been to see people coming down this aisle on recent Sundays to become a part of what God is doing here! We are again a growing church; moderately, yes, but growing nonetheless. I submit to you that the only thing that keeps us from becoming a truly successful church is that we do let some suspicions sidetrack us. Misunderstandings turn up here and there. And wherever we allow those to take over, there we drop back a step or two. Wherever we fail to work on growing each other’s gifts, there we lose ground. Wherever any of us allows suspicion to compromise us, there we push away the glory of God.
But the Bible says that the priests and the trumpeters and the singers and everybody else saw that it “was their duty ... to [speak] in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the Lord.” Did you hear that? In unison. With one heart and one voice. Pastors and pew-sitters. Old gray heads and newly minted graduates. Charter members and those that came in two weeks ago. The glory of God will come when all of us grow the gifts that others bring to the Kingdom.
III
Oh, that day in Jerusalem, when it all came together; when the work they had set out to do was finished, and when all the divisions melted away in unity, then “the house of the Lord was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.”
First Baptist Church, when we do all the work to which our God has called us, and when we do it growing each one’s gift and honoring each one’s pride, then the presence will come. Then we will be so filled we cannot stand, but will sink to our knees in humble adoration.
For the end result of obedience is not self-congratulation, but worship. We’re beginning to move, but not in our own strength. Whatever good that is happening here is of God, not of us, but of God. The end result of obedience is not self-congratulation, but sinking to our knees in thanksgiving, so filled we cannot stand.
And the product of faithfulness will be not only a fine church with a good program and a beautiful building. The product of faithfulness will be to know holiness and unity. When that comes, glory comes too, and I for one will sink to my knees in satisfaction, so filled I cannot stand.
Oh, brothers and sisters, the Presence, the Presence. “Thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory.” We cannot stand, and we certainly cannot just sit around; let us go to our knees and praise Him as Israel did, “[The Lord] is good; his steadfast love endures forever.”
O Lord our God, “Finish then Thy new creation, Pure and spotless let us be; Let us see Thy great salvation Perfectly restored in Thee! Changed from glory into glory, Till in heaven we take our place, Till we cast our crowns before Thee, Lost in wonder, love, and praise.”
